flinging ideas over the edge

June 25, 2010

Proficient at the sport of killing

Listening to Democracy Now on yesterday's long drive home, an active soldier nails it with harrowing eloquence.

Active soldier, Afghanistan vet and currently applying for conscientious objector status, BROCK McINTOSH: ... I was watching the World Cup a
couple weekends ago, and I made a joke: why don’t we just settle
conflict with sports, with soccer? And my friend was like, "Because then
America would lose," because we’re not very good at soccer. And I
realized that what we’re really good at is war and that there’s really
not much of a difference between the sport of war and the sport of
soccer, because in both cases values are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter
who’s more righteous, who has the better values. What matters is who has
the best skills at this particular sport. And being proficient at the
sport of killing is not something that I want to be proficient at, and I
don’t believe that being good at killing proves that I have better
values.

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Proficient at the sport of killing

Listening to Democracy Now on yesterday's long drive home, an active soldier nails it with harrowing eloquence.

Active soldier, Afghanistan vet and currently applying for conscientious objector status, BROCK McINTOSH: ... I was watching the World Cup a
couple weekends ago, and I made a joke: why don’t we just settle
conflict with sports, with soccer? And my friend was like, "Because then
America would lose," because we’re not very good at soccer. And I
realized that what we’re really good at is war and that there’s really
not much of a difference between the sport of war and the sport of
soccer, because in both cases values are irrelevant. It doesn’t matter
who’s more righteous, who has the better values. What matters is who has
the best skills at this particular sport. And being proficient at the
sport of killing is not something that I want to be proficient at, and I
don’t believe that being good at killing proves that I have better
values.